What is "wrong" with these new subcompacts?

logic1

You are dead on that you could rent a large car for the occasional duties for which you would need one, buy a little car for the rest of the time, and almost certainly come out ahead $$-wise

Or, you could be like me : No car. Use mass transit, bicycle or livery day to day. Rent when the other three are not practical.

imidazol97

The shape of the trunk in the Charger or 300 has a lot of impact on how much can fit in. We take an amazing volume when we travel in the LeSabre (Buick) trunk. We take more than we need but then we have it when we're there. The cooler goes on the back seat or floor.

You have to look at the trunk you're considering. I don't know what an Intrepid trunk looks like (nephew traded his for a Passat TDI).

logic1

People that buy Boxsters for play toys and only put on 2K miles/year, could probably rent one at $500/day, when they actually use it, and come out ahead...

Unfortunately, in many markets it is hard to rent the real cool cars.

A reason other than the weather for the rest of us to hate L.A. is that there is a heated competition to make every possible car available as a rental. I hear you can even rent Ferraris out there.

boaz47

Not just Ferraris but you can rent a 57 Chevy or a Cobra.

nippononly

let's not carried away here. There is a big difference between renting a car - a transportation mode that will take you exactly where you want to go when you want to go there regardless of time of day - and riding the bus - a transportation mode that will take you to fixed stops at given intervals and only during its hours of operation.

This doesn't have to be a big discussion about conserving Mother Earth. But for the occasional use (like andre's vacation/road trip that he mentioned), it makes sense oftentimes to just rent, if you have no use for all those seats the rest of the time. Certainly when it comes to large vans, full-size pick-ups, vehicles like that it makes more sense most of the time to rent it for the occasional use rather than making car payments, insurance payments, etc for a vehicle whose special abilities you have little use for most of the time.

logic1

Oh man! You are just rubbing it in.

Whenever business takes me to LA I always pick up the rental tab myself, just so I can get something out of the ordinary.

I'll have to look for a Cobra. Been a lifelong dream of mine to drive one.

Mr_Shiftright

Okay I measured cargo on the xA with a tape and it's at least 33 cf...if anything, they skimped on the measurements. Were you looking through the wrong end of a telescope again Andre, or is my math still as bad as in high school? :P I got 50 inches X 54 inches X 30 inches with back seats down and front seats in middle positions. If my math is bad, please tell me so I don't keep making this mistake!

But yes, you are correct--with the back seat up to accomodate a passenger, all you'd have is the split seat area. So I'd say with 3 people you could get the cooler in there, on top of the smaller split seat, and maybe two duffels in the back, that would be about it. ROOF RACK!! You could buy a nice rack and a watertight pod up top for a lot less than buying say a Matrix or RAV or some other crossover with a few feet more in the back.

Maybe the xA & PT and HHR aren't really subcompacts as we understand them? They have a certain utility that little coupes and sedans don't have.

RESALE on KIA: It doesn't matter if you sell the car or not, the money's gone. If you crack up or the car gets stolen you are going to be on the short end of the stick on the loan. But yes, if you drive it ten years without incident, the depreciation losses become less.

logic1

and riding the bus - a transportation mode that will take you to fixed stops at given intervals and only during its hours of operation.

In many urban areas, it is no longer a matter of saving the Earth it is simply more convenient.

The US is about to hit the big 300 million mark soon. This with the whole Great Plains and Northern Midwest rapidly emptying. Many parts of the nation are at or exceed European population density.

kyfdx

I get 47 cu/ft using those measurements?

I think you have a typo.. how can you have two measurements of 50 in. and 54 in.? Only pickup trucks are that wide...

Mr_Shiftright

I got 50 in width door to door and 54 from tailgate to back of front seats and 30 inches from the back of the downed seats to the headliner. Okay, trim say 4 inches off each of my measurements to allow for armrests, curvature of the roof, curvature of the tailgate etc. My measurements would only apply to very soft luggage or an xA full of foam rubber LOL!

snakeweasel

I could always do if I had to is get a little car for commuting, and then if I ever went on a long trip where I needed the cargo/passenger space, just rent something. I'd probably save money in the long run.

My dad did that, since he only worked a few miles from home (actually if he wanted to he could have walked to work almost as fast as he could have driven). he always bought a small inexpensive car. When he needed a bigger car for trips and such he rented a bigger car. Worked well for him.

kyfdx

50 in. in width? Seems really, really wide.. that would mean a 4 X 8 sheet of plywood would fit.. I like the foam rubber analogy, though....lol.

Some manufacturers only measure to the top of the seats... Some go all the way to the roof...

andre1969

I could see an xA having maybe 54 inches from the back of the front seat to the liftgate, at its longest dimension. And you might get a 50" dimension from side-to-side, again at the widest point. And maybe 30" from the level of the floor to the ceiling.

But then, you have to consider that the back window slopes inward. Not a lot, but it's there. And the front seats angle backward, unless you like to drive in a grotesquely upright position. The sides of the car also curve in. So does the roof. And then figure that the wheel wells and roof pillars are going to cut into your area.

Basically, you wouldn't be able to get a 50x54x30" box in the back of an xA. I doubt you'd be able to get something like that in anything car-based though. Even full-sized pickups barely have 50" between the wheel wells in the bed. A lot of wagons that claim to be able to accommodate a 4x8 sheet of plywood would actually have it resting atop the wheel wells.

carlisimo

"The "only rent it when you need it" argument can be extrapolated to a lot of vehicle purchases"

Well, in the end the CR-V wasn't enough and I borrowed my company's F-450 flatbed to move a box spring and sofa. So you're right. If you have to rent/borrow a vehicle to move even if you have a CR-V, you might as well get a Miata instead of a CR-V.

carlisimo

"The "only rent it when you need it" argument can be extrapolated to a lot of vehicle purchases"

Well, in the end the CR-V wasn't enough and I borrowed my company's F-450 flatbed to move a box spring and sofa. So you're right. If you have to rent/borrow a vehicle to move even if you have a CR-V, you might as well get a Miata instead of a CR-V.

(anyone else having problems posting?)

iluvmysephia1

of a 2006 Kia Rio LX on my computer's Windows screen in the color of Silver. I tell you what, that Silver with those new large, black side mouldings looks great. Depreciation or not, it doesn't matter. I just love the styling on the Kia's. There are a bunch of Kia workers who get on those computers and just plain come up with great small car designs. Can't wait to go shopping!

I will say this about the xA, even though it's light in the storage department it has an interesting look. The very few times I have seen one on the road I must stare and continue to stare until it's driver takes the little rig away from my sight.

That, my friends is a sure sign that a designer has put some serious thought into the design of the product. The same thing happens with the Scion tC. Not nearly as much with the Scion xB, though. I still think it's a freakmobile.

Sapphire Blue 2006 Kia Rio LX in 5-speed form and Silver 2006 Kia Rio LX and Tropical Red 2006 Kia Rio5 in 5-speed form and leather-wrapped steering wheel, metal pedals and foglights, leather-wrapped shift knob, a body design coupled with a suspension that invites tosses into turns. All for the only $14,195, minus $400 recent college grad rebate and $500 Owner Loyalty rebate. $13,295 buys a lot of cool subcompact, men.

Seahawks 24, Steelers 14. I'll just keep tweaking it as the Big Boy gets nearer and nearer and nearer. :P Whoo-hoo!

andre1969

measures something like 60 inches from the bulkhead behind the back seat to the base of the trunk opening. That kinda scares me to think that on some newer cars, that measurement takes you up into the FRONT seat! :surprise:

To be fair though, a Dart was a pretty big car for a compact, even in its day. Sometimes at swap meets I'll see reproduction quarter panels for sale, and I swear the Dart ones are just as long as the midsized Coronet/Charger/Satellite ones.

But then, my Dart also can't hold my cooler! :mad: Danged trunk is too shallow, partly because they put the spare tire in a well, FWD style, instead of just throwing it somewhere else in the trunk. I could always put the spare somewhere else though, like up over the rear axle, and put the cooler down in the well.

nippononly

to think that huge cars like that were once called "compacts". Were there such things as "subcompacts" in 1968?

logic1

Not sure if there was a subcompact category, but certainly you had subcompacts here in the US.

The VW Beetle was part of the US auto market since 1964.

Also, in those heady days of minimal government regulation, people of means and maybe more than a little eccentricity, would find ways to bring tiny cars over to the states.

My Uncle had a Cimca in college. I've seen Saab Sonnets and real tiny Fiats people brought over in the 1960s.

andre1969

there were no domestic subcompacts that I can think of. I guess probably not until the Pinto and Vega, and when AMC chopped a foot of the Hornet's wheelbase to come up with the Gremlin did we start getting domestic subcompacts.

I'm not sure, but think the measurements of my Dart are something like 111" wheelbase, 196" overall length, 53-54" tall, 69-70" wide. And maybe 3000-3100 lb, with the smallblock V-8 and air conditioning.

Now Consumer Reports did refer to the Corvair as a subcompact, even though it was marketed as a compact. I can't remember if I've even sat in a Corvair, but they were definitely smaller inside than a Falcon, Valiant/Lancer, or the later Dart. Or the Chevy II.

There was also a Rambler model called the American on a stubby 100" wheelbase. It was offered a few years in the 50's, then dropped, but then came back for 1960 IIRC. It might have been considered a subcompact.

Now with foreign cars, there were plenty of subcompacts.

andre1969

like before 1962, there were really only two size classes of car. "Standard" and "Compact". In 1962, Ford started marketing "Intermediates", with the Fairlane/Meteor. They were on a 115" wheelbase and around 196" long overall. Basically, about what a 1957 Chevy had been.

That same year, Dodge and Plymouth downsized their car lines to a 116" wheelbase and around 202" long. They weren't marketed as such, but they can be considered intermediate cars as well, and they did serve as the basis for what was to become the intermediate lineup.

nippononly

logic got me thinking how silly my post was - of course there were all the initial Japanese offerings available by the late 60s, every one of which was a subcompact, whether or not the EPA had such a class back then. Remember the wonderful Datsun 510? That was around before 1970. Also the Toyota Corona and Mark II, IIRC.

Actually it gives one a perspective on just how far subcompacts have come in 40 years. Look at how well-equipped and well-performing today's subs are compared to those first ones, and I will bet if we did the multiplier for 1968 dollars (allowing me a little artistic license here - I realize that is 38 years ago, not a perfect 40), today's subs would be significantly cheaper than those 1968 models.

Funny thing is, it took nothing but a durable product and spiking gas prices for Americans to abandon their large cars wholesale in less than a decade back then. I guess Americans are much more attached to the "bigger is better" motif now than they were then, given that the little cars are for the most part very durable now too, in many cases with very long warranties (much longer than any car would have had in 1968), and we have spiking gas prices now too.

Sidenote: I can't believe I am already paying close to $2.50/gallon again, I kind of thought we would get through the winter before prices started to shoot back up.

andre1969

The Intrepid's trunk is tall and deep, but not very wide, as the car really doesn't have much overhang behind the rear wheels, like what cars used to have. It's not so tall up under the rear package shelf, because the "ceiling" drops down to house the rear speakers. It's deep enough though that if something rolls far enough forward, I have to practically climb into the trunk to get it out.

The actual opening isn't very big though. I think that might be one disadvantage of the trunks that use those little struts instead of the old-style hinges with the torsion bars inside.

andre1969

I don't think they even established size classes until 1978. And they go on interior volume instead of overall size. For instance, a 1978 Mark V, all 230" or so of it, is only rated as a midsize! And some Rolls Royce models were actually classified as subcompacts!

bumpy

unless I'm forgetting something, the Corvair is the only domestic RWD 4-seat compact with IRS. Kinda sad when you think about all the Japanese and European imports that met that description in the last four decades.

andre1969

have ANY domestic RWD sedans other than the Corvair ever had an IRS? With the exception of the Charger/300 (and some help from Benz), Chrysler never got their RWD sedans out of the leaf spring era, let alone to IRS. GM switched everything over to FWD, although maybe the Catera had IRS? The new GTO does, doesn't it? But again, these both came from foreign subsidiaries.

Did the '89-97 T-bird/Cougar have an IRS? I know they had the gas tank up under the back seat like most FWD cars do...don't you usually need an IRS to do that with an RWD car, to keep the driveshaft stationary?

integradriver

Exactly! You put that many miles on something, or let a family with four kids inside of it, resale value is going to plummet. I estimate that my Sedona cost me about $7K - $10K less than the available Sienna/Oddyssey and it's well on its way to getting run into the ground at 20K miles/year.

logic1

I guess Americans are much more attached to the "bigger is better" motif now than they were then, given that the little cars are for the most part very durable now too, in many cases with very long warranties (much longer than any car would have had in 1968), and we have spiking gas prices now too.

Maybe 'Always prepared' describes today's buyer better than 'bigger is better.'

Growing up in the '70s, the old man used to pack the 9 of us in his Ford Econonline van along with the minimum luggage for a week and one half trip up North or out West every summer. Except for the time we got caught in near freezing weather in the Wyoming high country one August, I do not recall any real problem with winging it.

In comparison my sister packs the back of her Porsche Cayenne to the gills just to take her one 15 month old child out for the day.

logic1

unless I'm forgetting something, the Corvair is the only domestic RWD 4-seat compact with IRS. Kinda sad when you think about all the Japanese and European imports that met that description in the last four decades.

Off hand, while I can think of a lot of compact fwd imports from Japan and Europe over the last 40 years, I cannot recall all that many rwds.

At the affordable level there was the Beetle and some rather impractical sports cars.

At the pricier level you had the 3 Series and the C Series.

bumpy

I did forget the '61-63 rope-drive Tempest, but it's a long drought after that to the Lincoln LS and the Cadillac CTS and STS. The Catera and the GTO also have IRS, but those don't count as domestic engineering. The Thunderturds had solid axles, but there were a few special edition '94-03 Mustangs with IRS.

fredmcmurray

Beat me to it, but I only knew about the Tempest from "My Cousin Vinny".

fredmcmurray

40 years? Lots of Japanese models were RWD up until the mid-to-late 80s. Off the top of my head - Corolla, Celica, Cressida, Maxima/810, Mazda 929. Heck, I bet most other Japanese models were RWD prior to 1985.

nippononly

for pointing out the glaring omission there. The RWD set included the now famous AE86 Corollas that everyone wants for drifting. Those were late 80s cars. The wholesale switch to FWD at Japan Inc. happened right around 1989, with a few models going a couple of years earlier, and the largest sedans like Cressida staying RWD into the 90s. I only wish they would now all go back!

logic: so now we're a country of boy scouts, but we weren't in the 1970s? An intriguing idea...

logic1

Well, pre-1985 is pretty much before my time, auto awareness wise.

Also, pretty much before the Japanese' time US auto sales wise.

kyfdx

I wouldn't lump all of the Japanese brands together... Honda has been pretty much all FWD since '75... Nissan/Datsun had FWD models in the late '70s, then after that, probably over half of their line-up was FWD....

Toyota started with FWD later than the others.. but, they got there almost completely by 1989...

bumpy

Off hand, while I can think of a lot of compact fwd imports from Japan and Europe over the last 40 years, I cannot recall all that many rwds.

?! Datsun 510, 710, 810, Maxima, every iteration of the 200/240SX, Infiniti M30 and J30, RWD Celica and Cressida, Lexus IS300. It may not be a huge number, but it's a lot more than the domestics managed.

logic1

logic: so now we're a country of boy scouts, but we weren't in the 1970s? An intriguing idea...

I think the general attitude toward what people needed to get by has shifted from spare to over prepared.

My Dad's 1970s attitude toward what the kids needed was not all that unique. Nowadays you have Graco strollers with storage compartments that wouldn't fit in a 70s era VW microbus.

logic1

Maxima, every iteration of the 200/240SX, Infiniti M30 and J30, RWD Celica and Cressida, Lexus IS300.

If you quoted my whole post, you would have where I excluded sports cars. Also, the Maxima, M and J Infiniti and Cressida are not compacts.

carlisimo

For some reason Toyota and Nissan decided that the US should get a lot of FWD cars. Through the 90s, Japan had plenty of RWD options that we didn't have, like the Toyota Chaser and Mark II, and the Nissan Skyline (now here as the G35, but it used to be smaller).

In fact, while the early 90s trend here was FWD sport coupes, in Japan it was RWD sport coupes. But here, there just wasn't a market, and Nissan didn't help by dropping a truck engine in the 240sx.

logic1

For whatever reason, over the past 20 years or so, conventional wisdom has been the US market outside of lux and sports did not want rwd.

There are still many people who cling to old prejudices about rwd. Many posters on Edmunds worry about rwd in the snow, for instance, as though traction control and major improvements in all season tires had not occurred.

boaz47

In reguards to "sub-Compacts" What happened to all of those cars? Did any of the sub compacts stay Sub? Is the Maxima now a sub compact? What trend did the American buying public move to? If history is any indication the day of the sub compact passed as the economy improved. If people wanted to keep sub compacts wouldn't the mid sized market have had a very hard time getting to where it is today?

It just seems as if every few years they introduce a new contender in the sub compact parade only to have it grow over the next two generations to a compact. Something happens anyway.

Mr_Shiftright

yeah they grew because they were so conspicuously inferior to larger cars. But now they are much less so and function very well in their own right.

Also I'm not sure this will matter, but I just read today that the average American has the worst debt to savings ratio since the Great Depression.

tour4sure

What about the new toyota Yaris? I read a couple reviews on the 2007 subcompact. It seems like a nice subcompact, but, can I really trust the reviews that I read I magazines. They usually seem run biased tests. They usually try make the car they review seem so good...
The things I like in the car is its its looks, it was well designed car, and the plentiful standard features, well, for a subcompact 'economy' car, of course...
But then again, why opt for a subcompact, you simply buy a used car. But then again you have the warranty, and would have to worry about problems with it because its a new car...

Well, It does matter to me, All I care about is buying and quick... So, mostly I might settle for a used car anyway...

explorerx4

i've read those 'savings' storys before. my parents never had any money. they were middle class but there was nothing to save. where did it come from when people saved?
maybe it because they could buy a car cheap? :confuse:

boaz47

I might be dating myself but you may have a point. My first car was a 56 Plymouth. When reverse went out on it I gave it to my cousin for 75 bucks. Some of my friends would buy used metropolitan for 75 bucks and drive them till they died, the cars that is. I once bought a used 66 VW for 250 bucks at a lean sale and all it needed was a fuel pump and a clip for the clutch.

When we have to we will drive about anything. But once we can afford. I would have put up with a Sub compact when I was in school and before I got married. But today I know it wouldn't fit with my lifestyle most of the time. Driving back and forth to work is not living, it is surviving and I would rather survive in at least some comfort. Most sub compacts I have seen today souldn't even have a back seat. They should simply put a shelf back there for when someone goes shopping. People shouldn't have to sit in the back of a xA except when they are getting a lift from a friend in the rain to get to their real car.

andre1969

paid $75 for a '57 Plymouth in 1965, when she turned 16. She didn't like it though because it was too big. So she bought a 1959 Rambler wagon soon thereafter for around $200. Then when she was a senior in high school, she was able to save up half of the purchase price of a brand-new '66 Catalina convertible, and borrowed the rest from an aunt. I think that car was around $3200, brand-new.

When you factor for inflation, that '57 Plymouth would be around $450 today. The Rambler would be around $1200. And the Catalina would really be a screaming deal at $18,750!

Just to throw some other figures out, my uncle bought a '66 or '67 GTO for $500 around 1971 or so. And in '73, my Dad bought a '64 for $400. So with inflation, that's around $2400 for my uncle's, and $1800 for my Dad's. I also vaguely remember Granddad getting us a '64 Galaxie 500 4-door around 1973 to use as a second car. He paid around $75 for it. It didn't run, but all it needed was a new starter. That would come out to around $330 today.

You can still get cheap used cars today for around $500-1000 that still run. Of course, they're more complicated today, so it's probably not going to be as cheap to keep them running as it was back in the old days. But those seemingly low prices of days gone by are a bit worse once you factor in inflation.

And just for comparison, I doubt if my Grandma and Granddad made more than $3000 per year each by the mid-60's. And when my Granddad on my Dad's side retired in 1974 at the age of 60, he was only making $6.00 per hour.

Now, as for saving, one reason a lot of people didn't save so much back then was that most people worked all their lives for one company, and then were pretty much guaranteed a pension in their old age, so there really was no need to save. My grandparents always saved though, and my Mom tried to the best she could, but it wasn't so easy in the 70's!

As for those figures today, when they say we have the lowest savings rate since the Great Depression, I've heard that when they calculate those savings rates, for some reason they don't count 401k plans. So I could put $15000 into my 401k this year, but if I don't put money into anything else, my savings rate would be considered ZERO. For some reason, I'm thinking those savings rates only count savings/checking accounts, bonds, and CDs. And maybe conservative stuff like money market accounts, T-bills, etc. But I don't think they count mutual funds and individual stocks.

kyfdx

It seems the price on that Catalina is a little low... My mother bought a '67 Bonneville 2-door... the big fastback one... It was around $4400... I would think that a '66 Catalina convertible would be at least $4000.. if not, very close...

andre1969

Y'know, I always thought that $3200 seemed a bit low, too. But I remember looking it up in my auto encyclopedia ages ago, and the base price of a '66 Catalina convertible was something like $3256. I remember mentioning that to my Mom and she said "Yep, that's about what it cost".

Now, I know my Mom didn't get a base one. It would have at least had an automatic tranny. And if power steering/brakes weren't standard by then, she would have gotten them as well. And an AM radio. And I'm sure even whitewalls were optional. Wonder if a heater was standard by then? I know she didn't get air conditioning. And the engine was a 389. Now there was a de-tuned 389 you could get that was a credit option and saved you some money, but I doubt it would've dropped the price much even if my Mom got it.

So I'm wondering if maybe her car was closer to $4000, but she might have gotten them down a few hundred, and maybe suckered them into giving her a few hundred for the Rambler in trade? And maybe she's just saying the $3200 was what she paid, minus the trade? I guess I could ask her again, but I'm sure that the financial details would be a forgotten memory.

I have an American Standard Catalog for Chrysler products, and spec'd out the two Darts I've had. The '68 came out to around $3300, while the '69 came out to an astronomical $3600! Both of these cars had air conditioning though, which added around $330 or so back then, a pretty hefty chunk. The '68 was a lower trim level, a 270, but had a V-8. The '69 was a GT, a more expensive trim level, but only had a slant six. It was the bigger 225 though, which cost $45 more than the 170 (or was it 198 in '69?) and worth every penny. And again, these were MSRP prices, so I'm sure the actual sales prices were lower.

nippononly

enough of this reminscing about monster-sized cars of the 60s!! :-P

Unless we're talking about Beetles (I still love the Beetle despite all its many many faults), let's stick to post-Y2K here! :-)

andre1969

Mom's '59 Rambler WAS considered a compact for its day! :P